The Welshman believes that his side left themselves an uphill battle after the first 45 minutes, but feels that the Hoops could have snatched a point had Samba Diakite not been sent off in the second half.

Hughes said: "In that first half we were just off the pace for whatever reason. We didn't get anywhere near the level of performance that we need to in order to get positive results in the Premier League.

"In the second half we made a fist of it and when Adel [Taarabt] came on he obviously scored a great goal which got us a bit of momentum and I could see us possibly getting a second.

"But obviously the sending off has completely killed that momentum and at that point it was very, very difficult for us. We are desperately disappointed because on the basis of the first-half performance, we are much better than that."

QPR sit bottom of the table, having collected just two points from their first six matches.